A question for social conservatives in the West - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14489411
A simple one, really, more or less directed at social conservatives with roots in Christian tradition

Considering that social conservatism is essentially a rearguard action, a constant series of defensive manoeuvres constantly reacting to change, devoid of initiative, which of the lesser evils would you, as a social conservative, from your perspective, want to bequeath the legacy of your nation to?

After all, todays liberals are tomorrows conservatives.

In your eyes, what is the force that you would rather see triumphant in Western society out of these two

a)political Islam

or b)the "special interest group" (for lack of a better word) Left (preoccupied with being the vanguard for the LGBT community and radical feminism amongst other "isms").

Both groups at the moment, are more or less fringe movements, but highly motivated fringe movements gain traction over time and overturn moribund, stagnant political systems. I'm interested in responses and general thoughts on the matter as to what you view as more damaging to a fabric of your nation/society, and which group you would be more amenable to co-operating with.
#14489524
Bridgeburner wrote:A simple one, really, more or less directed at social conservatives with roots in Christian tradition

Considering that social conservatism is essentially a rearguard action, a constant series of defensive manoeuvres constantly reacting to change, devoid of initiative, which of the lesser evils would you, as a social conservative, from your perspective, want to bequeath the legacy of your nation to?

After all, todays liberals are tomorrows conservatives.


It happens; as liberals get older they get wiser (well not always! ), and adjust their rationalising accordingly. The younger someone is, the more liberal they are. For example, students are always liberal-minded.
#14489631
OllytheBrit wrote:[

It happens; as liberals get older they get wiser (well not always! ), and adjust their rationalising accordingly. The younger someone is, the more liberal they are. For example, students are always liberal-minded.


Not exactly what I meant, I meant that what is considered today as "progressive" will be conservative by tomorrows standards. So if political Islam is triumphant in this generation, it will be the status quo being "conserved" from tomorrows progressive assault. Liberalism is constantly changing, as a result conservative and progressive (liberal) are relative terms to their time period. Todays conservative would have been a progressive from yesteryear.
Last edited by Bridgeburner on 21 Nov 2014 17:26, edited 1 time in total.
#14489636
Bridgeburner wrote:A simple one, really, more or less directed at social conservatives with roots in Christian tradition. Considering that social conservatism is essentially a rearguard action, a constant series of defensive manoeuvres constantly reacting to change, devoid of initiative,

I don’t know if I’d say social conservatives are generally adverse to social change, I’d probably go for the expression “adverse to rapid social change” because they know full well they can’t survive without accepting, even encouraging changes. But, traditionally (notably in the US and Britain) the conservative groups have been the impetus behind massive economic changes which they must have known would have had a deep effect on society.
Bridgeburner wrote:In your eyes, what is the force that you would rather see triumphant in Western society out of these two
a)political Islam or b)the "special interest group" (for lack of a better word) Left (preoccupied with being the vanguard for the LGBT community and radical feminism amongst other "isms").

I’d opt for political Islam because political Islam is a symptom of liberalism. What I’m saying is, political Islam is on the cards with both those systems so aside from the general breakdown of cohesion and justice that results from liberalism, their seeming willingness to accept hardline Islamists into the country with gifts of money and education (as we’ve seen in Denmark) is going to eventually get them overrun by them anyway. Though it has to be said, the contradiction that liberals show in defending (even promoting) Islam while raging in the streets about the Pope or some pitiful little right wing anti-Islamist movement that amounts to nothing, is a sign of their weakness. They would therefore be easier to remove, but I don’t know what conditions you’ve set on this hypothetical situation here.
Bridgeburner wrote:Both groups at the moment, are more or less fringe movements, but highly motivated fringe movements gain traction over time and overturn moribund, stagnant political systems. I'm interested in responses and general thoughts on the matter as to what you view as more damaging to a fabric of your nation/society, and which group you would be more amenable to co-operating with.

The liberals wouldn’t usually have the burden of some sort of complex about whether they’re going to heaven or hell. It’s not written into their legal framework that they can lie to the infidel to further the cause of Islam etc. Muslims have proven themselves time and time again to be dishonourable, liberals who defend Islam yet hate nationalism or fascism are that way because they are pathetic. The liberals could be manipulated easier.
#14489650
Bridgeburner wrote:Considering that social conservatism is essentially a rearguard action, a constant series of defensive manoeuvres constantly reacting to change, devoid of initiative, which of the lesser evils would you, as a social conservative, from your perspective, want to bequeath the legacy of your nation to

You are assuming a lot here. For example, yesterdays liberals would have hung homosexuals by their necks. Not even conservatives do that these days, but that's because there isn't any economic incentive to do so. By your logic, todays conservatives are yesterdays radical liberals too. However, if we end up with a famine or plague, I imagine the non-producers would get killed off rather quickly.

Conservatism as stare decisis is really just saying that tradition holds for reasons you may not understand, so undermining traditional proscriptions requires a good reason. Today's left doesn't require reason. In a debate on something like homosexual marriage, a common liberal argument goes something like this, "There is no reason that homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to get married." Of course there is a reason, though. Marriage means heterosexual procreation, quite literally. Then, you get orthogonal arguments like, "Marriage is about love." Of course, it's not about love. It's about property rights, inheritance, and titles in the context of procreation. Hence, a person called an "illegitimate child" quite literally meant that they were not legitimately entitled to inheritance.

The left isn't just about breaking down traditional structures in a legal sense, but they are actually no longer too interested in making any rational sense. American conservatism isn't a rejection of the scientific method at all. In fact, it has very much been interested in material advancement through science. It just hasn't been about emotionalism.

Bridgeburner wrote:In your eyes, what is the force that you would rather see triumphant in Western society out of these two

a)political Islam

or b)the "special interest group" (for lack of a better word) Left (preoccupied with being the vanguard for the LGBT community and radical feminism amongst other "isms").

Honestly, since neither of them are particularly interested in reason, I don't see a substantive difference. I see stylistic difference. They are both hyper-religious, but they have very different religions. They are both extremely intolerant of people who don't accept their worldview. I think the primary difference is that Islam will procreate, whereas homosexuals generally won't.

So our rearguard actions today aren't because we simply don't like homosexuals, but rather because we do not have confidence our society will survive.

OllyTheBrit wrote:It happens; as liberals get older they get wiser (well not always!), and adjust their rationalising accordingly. The younger someone is, the more liberal they are. For example, students are always liberal-minded.

That's only because the communist party infiltrated Western schools to propagandize the students, with an emphasis on their natural inclination to assert their ability to govern their own lives without parents. That assertiveness is a natural matter, it isn't that kids in the 1500s thought that homosexuality and cocaine were wonderful pursuits. Kids in the 1500s would have differed considerably in their outlook from kids of today, because there was no state educational apparatus to propagandize them. Instead, they would have had a more clerical or religious outlook on life.

Bridgeburner wrote:Not exactly what I meant, I meant that what is considered today as "progressive" will be conservative by tomorrows standards.

This is a very whiggish view of things. The West hasn't seen its collapse yet. The Greeks fell. The Romans fell. The French and British empires collapsed, but technology marched on.

What's changing considerably is that liberals today are neither rational nor interested in rationalism, and this is something they have in common with Islamists. Liberals today are principally hedonists governed by a "pleasure principle," that operatively seeks a dopamine release, and if possible a thrill from norepinephrine and epinephrine. By contrast, Islamists are principally pre-enlightenment non-rational religious people using extreme violence to maintain group cohesion.

Bridgeburner wrote:So if political Islam is triumphant in this generation, it will be the status quo being "conserved" from tomorrows progressive assault.

I think the issue is somewhat different. Jews were part of the larger racist faction of the West when the West was building its empires. Many Jews were interested in Eugenics, and still are as far as it benefits Jews. The Jews primarily turned against racism by Western Europeans, principally because Western Europeans, primarily in Germany, decided that eradicating Jews from Europe was in their best interest. In the post war environment, opposition to "racism," "sexism," discrimination against "nation of origin," became part of the Western Canon. That is the progressive onslaught that has allowed political Islam to gain a toehold in Europe again. It is ironically, also a significant factor in the return of anti-Semitism in Europe.

Bridgeburner wrote:Liberalism is constantly changing, as a result conservative and progressive (liberal) are relative terms to their time period. Todays conservative would have been a progressive from yesteryear.

This is a lot of modern leftist dialog though. The Royal Society wasn't founded by a democracy like that of today. It was founded by a monarchy with a parliament consisting of Lords and propertied men. They were very much interested in science, even though they were not "democrats" or "egalitarian." So the idea that in Massachusetts you would get hung for sodomy, but in liberal Virginia you'd get 20 years is mildly amusing. However, it does little to address what you might characterize as progress. For example, some like to call Abraham Lincoln "the Great Emancipator," but he also had his hand in the genocide of the Sioux people. The truth is that he was a lawyer for the railroads, and the railroad tycoons were empire builders. So the balmy notions that "before the war (US Civil War) we were citizens of the several states, but after the war we were Americans" is basically just a bunch of bullshit propaganda so that you don't examine who Lincoln was, what he did, and who made crap tons of money from the outcome of the war.

It is the same sort of thing with the "Sexual Revolution." These people will not tell you how many people became pregnant and ended up killing off their unborn children, how many homosexuals engaged in sodomy and contracted diseases that proved fatal (tens of millions), how many family units broke up to be headed by a woman with a lower income, and that a man supporting himself under one roof and an ex-wife and children under another roof cannot realistically make ends meet, so the children will suffer developmentally. Why? Because if you actually used your capacity to reason, you wouldn't look at Hitler's concentration camps with as much horror as you would with the number of dead homosexuals, dead fetuses, and bastard children that has become the hallmark of the West. Today's progressives are not progressive. They are mindless barbarians. They want to live like animals. They eschew the major difference between man and all other animals--a massive frontal cortex with an amazing capacity for reason. Hell, they will assert with a straight face that men and women are equal--completely ignoring biological differences that even animals without a capacity for advanced reasoning and abstract thought can recognize with relatively primitive brains.

Paul Sanderson wrote:I don’t know if I’d say social conservatives are generally adverse to social change, I’d probably go for the expression “adverse to rapid social change” because they know full well they can’t survive without accepting, even encouraging changes. But, traditionally (notably in the US and Britain) the conservative groups have been the impetus behind massive economic changes which they must have known would have had a deep effect on society.

However, the conservatives aren't necessarily behind all the social changes. How many conservative men would really argue that sex outside of wedlock, unwed pregnancy, abortion, sodomy, single parent families and a general embrace of hedonism is a good thing? That all comes from the barbarous nature of the political left.

Paul Sanderson wrote:I’d opt for political Islam because political Islam is a symptom of liberalism.

A brilliant point.

Paul Sanderson wrote:What I’m saying is, political Islam is on the cards with both those systems so aside from the general breakdown of cohesion and justice that results from liberalism, their seeming willingness to accept hardline Islamists into the country with gifts of money and education (as we’ve seen in Denmark) is going to eventually get them overrun by them anyway. Though it has to be said, the contradiction that liberals show in defending (even promoting) Islam while raging in the streets about the Pope or some pitiful little right wing anti-Islamist movement that amounts to nothing, is a sign of their weakness. They would therefore be easier to remove, but I don’t know what conditions you’ve set on this hypothetical situation here.

That's the interesting aspect of the left, which ultimately shows that their primary interest is lining their own pockets with no apparent understanding of institutions--except when the people doing this are identified and singled out by an angry mob for extermination.

I mean, last night the president of the United States said this:

Barack Obama wrote:Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law? Or are we a nation that gives them a chance to make amends, take responsibility, and give their kids a better future?

Our modern system of slavery is peculiar in that if you do not support the exploitation of Hispanic labor, you get called a "racist." It's pretty amazing.
#14489795
Bridgeburner wrote:Not exactly what I meant, I meant that what is considered today as "progressive" will be conservative by tomorrows standards. So if political Islam is triumphant in this generation, it will be the status quo being "conserved" from tomorrows progressive assault. Liberalism is constantly changing, as a result conservative and progressive (liberal) are relative terms to their time period. Todays conservative would have been a progressive from yesteryear.


Oh I see. Well I must say that I honestly can't think of one single thing that liberals have propounded which was eventually proved to have been well-founded, thence to be universally accepted as conservative or progressive wisdom. Speak as I find? Image
#14489896
blackjack21 wrote:I mean, last night the president of the United States said this:
Barack Obama wrote:
Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law? Or are we a nation that gives them a chance to make amends, take responsibility, and give their kids a better future?

I’m guessing this is in reference to “fixing” the immigration system. Or giving an amnesty to the 11 million (or however many it is) illegal immigrants in the country. Looks like an attempt to win the Hispanic vote for the democrats in 2016, they could well make it a campaign pledge. He could’ve done with that speech before the midterms though really.
blackjack21 wrote:Our modern system of slavery is peculiar in that if you do not support the exploitation of Hispanic labor, you get called a "racist." It's pretty amazing.

Do you think Hispanic workers are being exploited? I’d say they know what to expect when they go to the United States and know they’ve always got the option of going back south.
#14490130
Bridgeburner wrote:In your eyes, what is the force that you would rather see triumphant in Western society out of these two

a)political Islam

or b)the "special interest group" (for lack of a better word) Left (preoccupied with being the vanguard for the LGBT community and radical feminism amongst other "isms").

Both groups at the moment, are more or less fringe movements,


Neither. In the choice between contracting bubonic plague and rabies, one should choose neither.
#14498574
In your eyes, what is the force that you would rather see triumphant in Western society out of these two

a)political Islam

or b)the "special interest group" (for lack of a better word) Left (preoccupied with being the vanguard for the LGBT community and radical feminism amongst other "isms").


Kinda begs the question: During World War Two, would you like to see Political Germans triumphant in Western Society? (In answer to the Islam one.)

For B, I believe small special interest groups should shut the fuck up, live their lives and quit acting like we owe them everything just because they were born. They have as much opportunity as the politically incorrect bunch here to get ahead.

America didn't do too bad as a Christian nation, expanding from shore to shore, eliminating slavery, and creating the highest standard of living in the entire history of the world. Liberals who have a problem with that have my permission to leave. In fact, I'd prefer they leave TODAY.

Hirdmann said
Neither. In the choice between contracting bubonic plague and rabies, one should choose neither.


I couldn't have said it any better. And I tried.
#14582881
Reason10 wrote:America didn't do too bad as a Christian nation, expanding from shore to shore,


Decimating and subjugating the native population on the way.

eliminating slavery


After introducing slavery

and creating the highest standard of living in the entire history of the world.


On the backs of slaves, children, immigrants and the poor.

Liberals who have a problem with that have my permission to leave. In fact, I'd prefer they leave TODAY.


Too late.

Equality bites, doesn't it?
#14635263
Bridgeburner wrote:Considering that social conservatism is essentially a rearguard action, a constant series of defensive manoeuvres constantly reacting to change (...)

After all, todays liberals are tomorrows conservatives.

I think the perspective is slightly wrong.

a) The defensive/offensive roles actually change on a per-topic basic and after decades of liberalization conservatives are more often on the offensive than the opposite.

b) Conservatives are not hostile to changes, they are adverse to novelty, while the left is curious of it. Which is of course related to their respective ages.


Examples in France:
* The right-wing favors economic liberalization while the left-wing defends existing public institutions and social programs. Or at least they are supposed to.
* The left-wing loves gadgets but is the most afraid of GMO and the most hostile to large constructions such as airports, skyscrapers, water dams, etc.
* The right-wing wants to make secularism recess for Christians while the left-wing is making secularism recess for Muslims.
#14635917
anna wrote:Equality bites, doesn't it?



And who pray tell wanted to keep the slaves in chains? Lincoln freed the slaves and he was a Republican, so those fighting emancipation must have been...

Equality?

Woodrow Wilson segregated the military and the government. Wilson was a...

Democrats were also responsible for most of the Jim Crow laws.

There's a reason they were called Dixiecrats and not Dixiepublicans.

So before you start slamming all Americans, maybe you should look at the evil your own party has done.
#14635932
Though it has to be said, the contradiction that liberals show in defending (even promoting) Islam while raging in the streets about the Pope or some pitiful little right wing anti-Islamist movement that amounts to nothing, is a sign of their weakness. They would therefore be easier to remove, but I don’t know what conditions you’ve set on this hypothetical situation here.


Of course this is at the heart of the argument. The right is reduced to shooting at targets to weak to return fire. Or is it?

There is a third position that the OP does not forward. What if:

C: A return to fundamental Christian belief systems driving a representative government toward more traditional positions on social issues.

We often forget that there are more Christians in the world than there are Muslims. There are nearly as many Catholics (orthodox and Roman) alone as there are Muslims. Muslims (IF IF IF they can maintain their relative birthrate at current levels; and that is a big IF, will not equal Christians for another 40 years.)

We also forget that in the US, the denominations that are growing fastest are the ones with more fundamental beliefs. Mormonism, for example, is experiencing rapid growth as are African Methodist Episcopal, Assembly of God, etc. Catholicism in America is growing with immigration and birthrate and it can hardly be called socially progressive.

(Now do pay attention here because you will not do well with a superficial analysis of what is happening.)

Conservatism, in the form of Republicanism (including its TEA Party and independent supporters) is punching way above its weight right now. While many are kvetching over Islam, this coalition of fundamentalist Christians and other socially conservative actors, has cleverly maintained its stranglehold on the reality of American political practice. Through gerrymandering of voting districts, clever packaging of interest groups (Guns, God and Gentiles) the American conservative movement is more powerful than ever before. And as the demographics shift from middle-of-the-road Christianity like Methodist (a generation ago the largest denomination in the US) to these more conservative, religious fundamentalists practitioners, conservatism is poised to continue to define the debate in America. Now add to this the ancillary fact that Islam as practiced in America is not their enemy on social issues but rather their ally and you have the real future for American conservatism.

What will be their largest claim to power? The curious alliance between the robber baron class and the former middle class. And this alliance driven by, you guessed it, (though they are weapons of mass distraction) the remembrance of past glories when Guns, God and Gentiles ruled the day. A happier time when the middle class had its "two chickens in every pot" and white Christian beliefs clearly drove the political debate.

The OP intimates that Conservatism is somehow loosing. Those of us who have been paying attention for a half century or more laugh at the very idea. What exactly is it that Conservatives have lost? Same sex marriage and (perhaps) abortion. (I say perhaps because this irritant is a rallying cry that is more valuable as a political lightning rod than it would ever be as a victory. It is Americans Palestine.) No the conservatives are not loosing. They have much freer trade, fewer unions, much greater restriction on immigration, a greater recognition of fundamentalist religious views in the political debate....issue after issue where rather than being weaker they are gaining strength.

Do consider this.

Nationally, self-identified liberals have gained numbers in recent years and were at a record high in 2014, but still trail self-identified conservatives by a large margin," Newport reported. "In 2014, the nation was 38 percent conservative, 34 percent moderate and 24 percent liberal."Feb 12, 2015


The truth is in that "34% moderate" number. What does moderate mean? It means not hair-on-fire right-winger but socially and economically conservative. Why do I say this? Because (and our European friends will back me up on this) the left in the US is a very small group if the standard "left" in a European sense is used. Even if you just ask Democratic Party members you get this amazing number 21% of democrats consider themselves conservative and a whopping 35% more consider themselves moderate.

So in real numbers the US is becoming more liberal but only very slightly and only on issues largely dominated by the conservative debate. In other words, conservative social constructions. (Imagine something like, "I must be a liberal because I am not opposed to same-sex marriage". Never mind that this same voter is anti-immigrant, wants a balanced budget, is pro free trade, etc.

So a long post too say to liberals, "while you were sleeping we set the debate, defined who you think you are and consolidated our strength. An you think we are losing."
#14635935
Hong Wu wrote:These historical arguments about democrats don't have a lot of context today, although it is topically true that democrat-controlled areas have higher rates of racial segregation, crime, economic inequality and social problems.


If historical arguments have no context today, why did Anna enumerate all the supposed evils Americans committed on others. I just put the onus where it belonged.

Further, there's plenty of context when you consider the derogation of race relations under the Obama administration. Once again, let's put the onus where it belongs.
#14635938
so_crates wrote:If historical arguments have no context today, why did Anna enumerate all the supposed evils Americans committed on others. I just put the onus where it belonged.

Further, there's plenty of context when you consider the derogation of race relations under the Obama administration. Once again, let's put the onus where it belongs.

They don't matter because the Democrats superficially are polar opposites of what they were in the past.
#14635943
You mean they claim to be. They just hide their prejudice now.

Planned Parenthood was originally created to cut down minority populations. Who do you think uses Planned Parenthood the most today?

Minimum wage was originally created to make labor more expensive, forcing uneducated minorities out of jobs. Guess who's going to be hurt if minimum wage,goes up to $15 an hour.

Guess who was most unemployed during the Great Recession.

Not to mention the racist remarks made by liberals that other liberals are always giving them a pass on

No, it's same racist party, they just give it a smiling face.
#14635989
Like as though Republicans weren't just as racist. Who fought against desegregation hardest? Democrats. What did these exact same democrats do during the Southern Strategy? BECOME REPUBLICANS. Really if you hated Southern racist democrats of the past you must really hate the Republicans of today because conservative peasant Democrats seized the party from the wealthy new-England leaders who guided the party to victory in the Civil War.

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